Mom shoots at burglar trying to steal her car

One Columbus mother fought back when she saw someone stealing her car.

COLUMBUS, GA (WTVM) -

A Columbus woman catches a man trying to steal her car and fires back literally. The car theft gone wrong happened late Friday evening.

News Leader Nine's Tyrone McCoy caught up with the victim. He has an exclusive interview with the single mother who says she was just protecting her family and belongings.

Diane Olearnick says she was just trying to protect what was hers when a burglar tried to steal her car after breaking into her home the day before.

Olearnick says "[it] made me really angry and I felt really violated at that point."

The single mother and her three year old live in what she thought was a safe neighborhood. That is, until she returned home on Thursday afternoon and found it had been broken into.

"I found things missing. They trashed the house, pulled out drawers," Olearnick said. "They got in through the dog door."

One of those missing items was the spare key to her Jeep Wrangler. Petrified and trying to clean up the mess, Orlearnick says she kept her daughter and her weapon close by just in case a burglary came back. And they did the very next night.

She adds "I heard the back gate open. You can hear it pretty loudly in the house. And it alerted me. So I went off my balcony to check and I saw a man getting into my car."

Olearnick says she told the burglar that she had a gun and demanded him to stop, but he continued backing out of her drive way. She says she was not letting the robber get away with anything else of hers.

"[I] grabbed my gun, ran downstairs and ran out the front door and met him as he was backing out. So, I started firing," Olearnick explains.

Completely emptying the magazine in the Jeep and scaring the robber out through the passenger seat and running down the street. It's an experience Olearnick says she hopes raises awareness for crimes like this.

She adds, "You think it's not going to happen to you. I have an alarm system, I have flood lights, I have deadbolts. You just have to be more aware."

At this time, it is unknown if the robber was hurt. Police are still investigating the case as of right now. No charges have been filed against Olearnick.